MEDDLING

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does meddling mean? 

• MEDDLING (noun)
  The noun MEDDLING has 1 sense:

1. the act of altering something secretly or improperly

  Familiarity information: MEDDLING used as a noun is very rare.

• MEDDLING (adjective)
  The adjective MEDDLING has 1 sense:

1. intrusive in a meddling or offensive manner

  Familiarity information: MEDDLING used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• MEDDLING (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The act of altering something secretly or improperly

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

meddling; tampering

Hypernyms ("meddling" is a kind of...):

change of state (the act of changing something into something different in essential characteristics)

Derivation:

meddle (intrude in other people's affairs or business; interfere unwantedly)

• MEDDLING (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Intrusive in a meddling or offensive manner

Synonyms:

busy; busybodied; interfering; meddlesome; meddling; officious

Context example:

busy about other people's business

Similar:

intrusive (tending to intrude (especially upon privacy))

 Context examples 

The fourth, “Who has been meddling with my spoon?”

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

He is a harsh man; at once pompous and meddling; he cut off our hair; and for economy's sake bought us bad needles and thread, with which we could hardly sew.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

It gave me a kind of savage joy when I thought how Sarah would feel when she had such signs as these of what her meddling had brought about.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

And you're the last above board of that same meddling crew; and you have the Davy Jones's insolence to up and stand for cap'n over me—you, that sank the lot of us!

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Do away with war, if the cursed thing can by any wit of man be avoided, but until you see your way to that, have a care in meddling with those primitive qualities to which at any moment you may have to appeal for your own protection.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He had caught her meddling, I suspect, and given her a bit of his mind, and that was the start of it.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)